Carphone Warehouse launches Spotify rival

Stream your music from any web-connected mobile device

Music Anywhere catalogues the music collection stored on your PC, and uses that as the basis for an online library from Music Anywhere's own collection of six million tracks.

The music streaming service will automatically make a digital copy of any tracks that are not contained in the Carphone Warehouse's music archive to ensure users can still listen to the song on the move.

Users can access their personal online music library from any mobile device with an internet connection and create playlists. It is expected to cost £29.99 per year.

The Carphone Warehouse has also created a Music Anywhere app for a number of different mobile phones, including BlackBerrys and handsets running Google Android, that lets users listen to the 500 most played tracks on the music streaming service without the need for a net connection.

"The new Music Anywhere service lets you listen to your favourite songs wherever you are, through any computer or by downloading the mobile app," said Tom Guy from the Carphone Warehouse.

"It takes just a few minutes to set up, but it means you can have thousands of tracks available from home, at work, on the train or in the car."

However, web users with illegally downloaded tracks stored on their PCs could find themselves disconnected from the service.

Catch Media, which developed the technology used in the Music Anywhere service, told the Daily Telegraph that "in extreme cases where it becomes apparent that most of a person's music collection has in fact been pirated, their subscription to the Music Anywhere service could be terminated".

However, it was unknown how the service would identify whether a track had been pirated or not.